Until We Bleed
by xXxRainbowxXxStarxXx
Summary: A world of horrors, long lost innocence, false love and no morals isn't a world you want to be dragged into, but then neither is World War Two. Cupid has a gun and I'm not the one he should be shooting at. But then again, neither is Joe.
1. Chapter 1

**Until We Bleed**

****Okay guys, I know, I know, too many band of brothers stories, but this just came to me, sort of like an epiphany, while I was listening to Lykke Li's Until We Bleed song.

**It's about prostitution, so viewers of a nervous and prude disposition, don't read it, because there's bound to be some full on mentions or allusions to sex. There, I did warn you. A'thank you.**

* * *

I am just a whore. Nothing more nothing less. I am unfeeling and unthinking. I am naked. I am numb. I am stupid. My heart is barren, neglected, withered away to nothing on the time I've burned with the wrong ones. There's been so many wrong ones now, I've lost count. I don't know their names, and they don't know mine. I'm any one to them.

They're drunk, they need it. Fake love is what I give to them. Nothing more, nothing less.

My body is a shell. Cold to the touch, like ice, white and gaunt like a porcelain doll, fractured and cracked like glass.

I am bound to linger in the world of horrors. Normal girls my age are married, or chasing men. I chase men too, but not in the right way.

I have to be needed, I need to be needed. There's no point to me if I'm not needed. Sometimes I am thankful I am needed. Most times I'm not.

There's no waves of pleasure that drift over me, just the rank stench of beer or whiskey. I drown in the numb sensation, dragged down by weights of disgust. My days of wishing for someone to pull me out of this sinful water are long gone. I've grown up since then. My time of innocence is far behind this unhealthily thin alien form of mine. I drank my share of the fatal drop so long ago, it's like I have lived forever since then.

Opiates, alcohol, mind numbing drugs are all taken. They don't make me feel better, like he says they should. My skin crawls on top of me with the mere mention, but I take them anyway. He'll get mad if I don't.

I get no wiser.

I return again and again to the hand that strikes. The pain is the only thing I feel, but I come back each and every time. I am burnt, bruised, broken. I take my unfair share of hard hits and violent kicks. It makes me feel human. To be human is to feel, and if pain is the only thing I can feel, I'll take it to feel normal.

I love until I bleed. It's not real love. There's not a butterfly in sight, no warm hearts. No fluttering heartbeats. Mine doesn't skip for anyone. It doesn't know how. I know it wants to learn. It's had it's false moments, when people were kind, when I was new.

I'm like an old doll now. I get discarded even before they're breathing normally again. My earnings are left in a small pile on my mantle piece in the tiny room I call 'home'. There is a bed, but no true love could ever blossom in it. A chair sits in the corner, with no other purpose other than to fill the room, set clothes upon and hold up Hamish, when he wants me to show him how I earn his money. There are no mirrors, nor will there ever be. I can't bare to face the deathly creature I have become in 2 years.

1940 is the last time I saw the day light and looked alive. I had a heart then. I had innocence. I had love and family. Now I have nothing. Pamela asks why I stay, when I sit in her room, bloodied and bruised from Hamish's fierce fists. Peddling my body is all I have. Max has more than once offered me a job behind the bar of my home town. I decline. We whores have to stick together.

I know they wish we didn't. We push one another to leave every opportunity we get, but we don't leave each other. There's four of us and if one leaves, that's one less to save you from the beatings when you've been short changed.

Some people imagine life for us to be decadent, like the prostitutes of Paris, wrapped in gold finery and fine silk sheets, luxurious bedrooms, handsome men. They wouldn't know an ice cold bedroom, with thin lace curtains, scratchy cotton bedsheets. No fancy clothes to reel the fish in with. There's no shilly shallying with fancy knickers. What you see is what you get and if you don't like it, there's nothing more, nothing less.

Most men stay gone. They stay clean away after one night with us. But not this time. My whole world has collapsed. 3 times now. The start of the war, the death of my brother and now.

I stand at the bridge, in the icy cold darkness, like I usually do when I can escape for a few hours. I contemplate it. I contemplate everything; my life, my choices, where I could go from there. I climb on to the stone wall. No one will see me. It will be slow, but I'll have time to change my mind, if I like.

But someone does see. They call to me, pull me roughly off the wall. They stand and stare angrily at me, ask me what I was thinking. But I don't think. I am unfeeling. I am unthinking. I brush past him. No one saves whores. I want to scream that at him, while he complains I haven't thanked him for saving my miserable life.

"I'm just a whore, sir. No one saves whores."

"I guess I must be a no one then."


	2. A Knight in Olive Drab

**A Knight in Olive Drab Armour**

* * *

Blood is like sex. Hot, sticky. Sometimes it's bitter sweet. Love is bitter sweet. Love is like blood. Sticky. You have to hurt to get love and blood. No one wants to admit this, but we all know it's true.

Love and sex aren't the same. You can spend years trying to convince yourself, but they'll never be the same. Sex will hurt you once, love will hurt you more times than that.

It's funny, how red can mean all of these things. Red for blood, anger, stop. Red for love and passion. The same colour for things on opposite ends of the spectrum.

My life zigs and zags back and forth from each end. It's like someone's toying with me. But I don't mind. Things feel better. They feel strange. Ever since that night the unknown soldier pulled me back, stopping me making a huge mistake, I felt different. I felt like maybe whores do have a chance. A slim one, but a chance still.

I seem to see the unknown soldier where ever I go. I can't escape him. He follows me like the day follows the night, like a dog follows it's master. Hamish isn't the only man I can't escape now. His eyes always follow me like a hawk, watching and waiting for what I do next. I feel like a gazelle stalked by lions, knowing that there are two men waiting to snap me up.

I saw him watching, on a few occasions, when I brought someone back to my slab of ice I called a bed, the little piece of Hell I called home. He waited until they left, just to catch a glimpse of the whore who'd tried to jump.

I deliberately ignored him if I saw him. Not many of the Americans knew of us, and I am certainly glad of that. One customer, was one too many, not that it stopped other girls starting the disgusting profession.

We had a new girl.

Bernadette. She was 17, only a baby. But if that's what you have to resort to, that's what you have to resort to. We sat in the local bar, Hamish, Pamela, Bernie, Lizzy, Vera and I, in our little, regular booth. Bernie had the misfortune to catch the eye of a soldier at the bar and Hamish released his wrath on the poor girl.

"Hamish! Leave off!"

I felt like a feral animal, a hell cat. I wouldn't let this servile man destroy this innocent young girl. Everything in his path or that which fell in his shadow, withered and died. Things crumbled to dust, people faded. Hearts stopped.

He lashed out at me. No one talked back to the bringer of death. No even his angels.

He took a pint glass from the table and stuck me with it. It was a deafening blow, the whole pub lost it's friendly atmosphere. I was sent sprawling on to the floor, discarded like the little broken rag doll I was.

My unknown saviour took to the stage once more. He threw himself at him, like a rabid dog, while I stood with the help of Pamela. The unknown knight in olive drab armour pummelled him, until his face looked like mash potato and red sauce. I took this chance to leave, pulling on Bernie's spindly wrists as I hurried out.

A trickle of blood etched down my nose and the corner of my lip. There it was again. Pain. The only thing I could feel.

I didn't know where I was running to until I got there. It was the train station. The last train was yet to leave this cold, cold hell. I wouldn't be on it. I couldn't leave. But Bernie could. I had friends who owed me favours. Taking her in wouldn't be too much to ask. I pressed my last remaining coins into her hands. It was enough to get her where she was going. There wasn't a good bye, not a proper one. I just shoved her on to the train. I did watch it leave and I felt something I'd not felt since I was rescued. Relief.

It washed over me, like water over a pebble. Like the cold water I used in a morning to wash. I sighed, in another emotion I'd not felt since 1940.

Content. She would be safe now. Out of his hands, out of our hair. Under the watchful eyes of my friends, she would blossom, making something good out of herself.

Sighing out the wasted breath in my lungs, my face, as I turned, came into contact with something hard and warm. A man's chest. I looked up, quicker than a runner's heartbeat.

It was my knight in olive drab.


	3. To Be Human

**To Be Human**

****thanks to paintmyworlddarkblue and vintagecowgirl1010 for reviews, it's much appreciated :)

enjoy guys!

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I want to thank him, but I know only one way. That's not special any more. I give myself to people, like people give sweets to children. I don't know how to say thank you any other way, I don't think I could say how grateful I am anyway.

But I don't want him to fall into my spiders web. There's something about this one, what's different.

"I keep telling you. No one saves whores."

"And I keep telling you, I must be no one."

His piercing stare holds me in my place. I don't try to move, I don't try to run. I just stand there. Watching. Waiting. My breath unfurls into tiny clouds, drifting off into the night sky. The train is long gone, but we're still in the station. We watch each other, like hawks and I have a feeling, that the lion has caught it's prey.

"I'm Joe."

His statement catches me slightly off guard. No one tells me their name. Then again, he is a no one. I just nod, and move past him. He catches my arm in his bony, skeletal hand. My eyes travel from his thin fingers, up to his skinny arm, to his pale face.

It's luminescent in the moon light. He looks like a vampire. I can see he's haunted too, the mix of emotions wash over him like rain.

Men always want the same thing, never anything else. It's just the way it goes. They say they love you, they need you and after you give yourself up, they leave. Every girl has the same story. It turns them into bitter, angry and lonely women and if they fell from grace, then they become bitter, angry and lonely whores. There's nothing they wouldn't trade to get back what they gave up. But it's too late now.

I am bitter. I am angry. I am alone. But I am whore, first and foremost.

"You going to tell me your name? I've saved you a few times and you've never said thank you. At least give me your name lady."

I open my mouth to tell him my name. It feels so foreign on my tongue, so alien on my bruised lips, but it rolls along and out of my mouth like no one had stopped using it.

"Persephone."

He repeats it, and I find I like the way it falls from his mouth. I nod, telling him he got it right and the vampire knight's face twists into a pleased smile. His grip on my arm loosens, but he doesn't completely let go. His hand slides down my arm, to my hand. It lingers there, like a kiss on the lips from a lover, before it falls to his scrawny side.

"You should get that looked at."

The vampire skirts my bruised and bloodied face with his bones and I shudder. Trying to cover it up, I pull my coat around me, tighter.

"No. no, they'd just ask questions."

"Doc won't."

"Who's he?"

Doc was one of the company medics. He wore the same haunted look on his face that Joe did. He was gaunt, pale and dark haired, just like Joe. He knew people were going to die in his arms. Knew there was nothing to do to change that fact.

Here was a man, who knew he wasn't god. Most men would think they were God. They believed life was theirs to take. But this one knew how people suffered, and couldn't do a thing. Maybe that's why he looked like he did.

He never asked questions. Never spoke. Just cleaned and dressed my little wounds. After, he just left, going back to his bed. I thought about my own bed. It would be cold, as usual and empty, save me. Cold and alone I would lay tonight. I didn't feel like taking someone in with me.

Joe, my vampire knight, walked me to my so-called home.

I looked at the Gate to Hell. Hades would be waiting for me inside, ready to lay into me, for trying to leave. I'd never leave the Underworld. Once you consume something from the garden of Hell, it consumes you.

My hand touched the door and recoiled, like I had been burnt. I didn't want to go back.

"I could come in with you." Joe suggested, his voice low and protective.

"No. Once you go to Hell, you never leave."

"I think I could find some way out. You could too.. if you tried."

"I was trying when you first met me."

"That's not a way out."

"It is for us."

He followed me inside and we creeped to the stairs. Every shadow had me jumping. It never bothered me before, if he beat me and I ran. But Joe had given him what he should have had a long time ago and now, I could feel more than pain. I felt fear.

It soaked through, right into my bones, in all the crevices and cracks of my soul. It sank into my skin, like a boat sinks into the deep, dark ocean, never to be seen again. It welled in my eyes, like tears, as we made it to the stairs to my attic bedroom.

I looked around, every sense on edge. I felt like I was the soldier and Joe was the one I was looking out for.

He gazed around my barren and ice cold room. Like Hamish, everything was withered and dead in it. I winced, as he picked his way through the room. I had acquired an old vanity and it now stood dishevelled in the corner, next to the mantle piece. He picked up a little handkerchief that sat next to my untouched make up and dropped it out of his fingers with an air of carelessness.

"Jeeze..." he breathed, almost shivering from the freezing draft that seemed to ebb your life and soul away.

"Welcome to my world." I replied, standing behind him, checking one last time for my Keeper. I swiftly locked and bolted the door. He looked at me, black eye brows raised.

"You think I want him to come in here while you're here? He'd kill the both of us."

Joe made a noise with his tongue, stuffing his hands in his pocket and leaning on my mantle piece.

"I doubt it 'Seff."

"What?"

"Your name. Sounds better shortened."

"No it doesn't."

He smirked and I felt my lips curve up at the corners. It had been a long while since I had smiled a true smile. Even if this was just a little smile, it was still there. His lips curved a little more, and, pushing himself off the mantle, he closed the gap between us.

"You should smile more. It makes you look prettier."

Now I smirked.

"I'm a whore. You don't have to flirt to lay in my bed."

"You're Persephone. You're a girl. You have lungs, you have a brain, you have eyes, legs arms, a heart-"

"I doubt that very much. The only thing I feel is pain and fear."

"Now, I don't think that's true.." he scowled.

"When you do what I do, you learn to get rid of feelings."

"Not done a great job if you still feel."

"Pain and fear? They're just there to remind me I'm still human."


	4. Purple Snowflakes

**Purple Snowflakes**

Aye carumba, I'm sorry it's been so long guys, but basically... I've been doing fuck all. Well, aside from hanging round with me amigos and t'boyfriend. But other than that. Fuck all. I do apologise. Enjoy.

* * *

Purple and black circles snow flaked on my arms. My blood poured on the floor, leaking out like spilt milk. I'm broken, like a spoilt child's toy. He forced himself into me, like a thief forces locks. He destroyed me until he was satisfied, and then left me, beaten, broken and bleeding heavily on the floor.

He saw Joe leave. He knew I wouldn't charge him. I knew he wouldn't forgive him for what he did to him in the pub. The only way to get to him, was to hurt me. So he did.

In and out, in and out, until it was over. Until there were deep crescent marks in my arms, seeping blood. Until there were pools of blood forming from between my legs, as I tried to crawl to the door. Until my gaunt, pale, almost already dead body, was racked with sobs, flecked with blood, tinged with bruises, and covered in cuts. I wanted to die. I needed to die.

My naked form, was torn to shreds. I was freezing. The blue, black and purple bruises that tarnished my skin, blended into the now ice blue hue, as my body temperature dropped rapidly in the icy cavern I called my room.

The door was locked from the outside, meaning I could never escape my frozen prison. When I was rescued, I found I had been in there just a few hours, but it felt like days, months, years.

There was scraping and hurried voices. Panicked voices. Trembling voices. Who they belonged to, I just couldn't think. I couldn't concentrate. The pain was all too much to concentrate on anything else. But then again, I am just a whore. This is how you're treated, once you fall from your graceful tree and into the whore's garden. I didn't expect to be treated any less than this. But I didn't expect for him to almost murder me.

I'd given up on the door. I just wanted to be warm. I crawled, dragging my legs behind me, to the edge of my bed, where I pulled the covers off and wrapped them around me as best I could. I noticed Joe's tie was under my bed. I don't remember how I got there, because I can't focus. I listen to myself wheeze, because it's the only thing I can actually hear, the blood pumping in my ears has blocked almost everything else out.

Things were becoming black, until the door was broken from it's hinges. I saw boots, many boots, but I didn't get to see who's they were. My eyes slipped shut and darkness held out her arms, wrapping me in her solid embrace.

* * *

I wasn't where I thought I would be when I awoke. I thought I would be dead, looking upon myself under a white sheet. No. I'm alive. Breath leaves and enters my body. My eyes flicker open to the low mumble of male voices. It's not bright and airy, I'm in no hospital. It's dim, just a few lights and it's close quarters.

"Jesus Christ, what did the guy do to her?" A voice scraped in the dim light. It began to dawn on me, that I must have been taken to the same guy as before.

I groaned, trying to get up, now fully aware of my surroundings, and the fact that I was still naked. Now that I had warmed, I looked lucky to be alive. The blues had turned to deep purples and blacks. My ribs felt like they were impaling me on every breath I took, and my head pounded like Hephaestus' anvil.

"You know, it is quite cold here... and I am naked."

Every man in the room, save Joe, blushed like nuns in a brothel. Said man casually brought over a blanket, as if things like this happened to him every day.

"You know where he went?"

"No Joe, I don't. All I know is, he beat the fuck out of me, and I ended up here. Now you all know what I am. I am a whore, my boss beats the shit out of me and the girls if we don't charge, if we're out late, if we get short changed. Stop helping me and let me die. It's the only way out."


End file.
